


Light and Labor Past

by Zdenka



Series: The Arrow For Its Swiftness: Misadventures of a Fëanorian [5]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Eregion, Gen, Poetry, Second Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3534818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/pseuds/Zdenka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The smiths of Eregion prepare to face Sauron. (The narrator is Feredwen, an original character.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light and Labor Past

**Author's Note:**

> Meter: modified Sapphics (since I apparently forgot where the dactyl goes when I was writing this)
> 
> Many thanks to Aliana and Himring for looking this over.
> 
> "When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;  
>  When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past . . ."  
>  ( _The Two Towers_ , "Treebeard")

New for them this learning, and a new labor:  
nock the feathered shaft and draw back the bow-string,  
loose, and send the flying arrow in freedom  
swift to the target.

Long ago I learned the rough ways of battle;  
not so these my fellow smiths, who must newly  
take up arms and grimly set to their training,  
forges abandoned.

This, this too I lay to your charge, Abhorred One:  
craftsmen’s hands that should be shaping in silver  
lay aside their tools and delicate workings  
for shield and sword-hilt.

Well I know there is not time for this training;  
war too is a craft--bitter the teaching;  
yet we now must fight, lest all things of beauty  
perish forever.

You whose graves were swallowed by the grey ocean;  
you who died by sword, by sorrow and fire;  
for your sake, my lords, my fallen kindred,  
I will not falter.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Abhorred One_ \- meaning of the name Sauron
> 
> _you who died by sword, by sorrow and fire_ \- a glancing reference to the Doom of the Noldor: "yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief . . ." (The Silmarillion, "Of the Flight of the Noldor")


End file.
